


Echoes

by orphan_account



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Death, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Mention of blood, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 10:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3974122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Dan's death, Phil must come to terms with the fact that he's really gone for good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first work I've posted to AO3, and the first thing I've completed for this fandom (I told myself I wouldn't ship phan, and yet here I am). I didn't actually mean to write something sad as the first thing I'm posting, but I guess late-night inspiration disagreed with me. Anyway, hope you enjoy the fic!

The worst part wasn’t the emptiness, the vacant space that used to be occupied, the echoing silence where there used to be faint humming or the clicks of a keyboard. That only served to reinforce the fact that what was done was done, that he was gone.  


No, the worst part was the presence of the odd socks found under the sofa when cleaning, the mug found half-hidden behind a stack of assorted papers, the bedroom door left just a little ajar, beyond which the room would doubtless be exactly as it was left. Even though he hadn’t dared peer inside, Phil knew what he would find--rumpled black-and-grey bedsheets left in disarray, precarious piles of who-knows-what, and increasingly dust-covered camera equipment, still in place from the last video filmed, just before---  


_No._ There was no point thinking about it, no reason to bring back the memories he had tried so hard to deny, to shut out and pretend like everything was going to be okay. If he could just keep it together, if he could prove to everyone that he was capable of handling this…  


That was just it, though. _If._ After…...after _it_ happened, after the worst day of Phil’s life, everything that had been certain before had become an endless series of hypotheticals. _If_ he could go back to the flat, _if_ he could do the radio show alone, _if_ he could continue on as if something like this happened everyday, as if losing a friend in a freak accident was something that could just be glossed over, skipped past like pages skimmed over in a book.  


The piercing whistle of a boiling kettle pierced through Phil’s musings, bringing him back to reality. A reality in which he was alive, and intact, and Dan’s life had been abruptly cut short, where he had been quickly mourned, cremated, and whisked off back to his parents’ house, leaving Phil in a too-empty flat with the ghosts of memories and the ruins of an old life.  


After pouring a cup of tea into the plainest mug he could find (pushing aside the Hello Kitty mug perhaps a little too forcefully, an attempt to block out the _“It ejaculates loads of coffee into your face!”_ that briefly ran through his mind, in a voice that would never be heard again barring old videos and recordings), Phil stumbled into the lounge, eyes half-closed to avoid catching a glimpse of anything that could possibly remind him of the empty sofa crease beside him, the untouched Wii controllers, the absence of his best friend for the past six years. He blindly reached out a hand towards the other end of the sofa in pursuit of the remote, vaguely remembering dropping it there the afternoon that it all ended.  


Instead of hard plastic, however, he touched slightly fuzzy fabric. Before he could think about what he was doing, what he was trying so hard to avoid, Phil had dragged the garment over to him and was glancing at it with eyes wider than they had been in two weeks. In his grasp was bright red cloth, with bold lettering proudly declaring “Manchester University.”  


That was all it took.  


In a second, all the memories came flooding back, an unrelenting cascade that left Phil clutching Dan’s hoodie to his chest as he sobbed and took broken, gasping breaths, as if he was never going to be able to get enough air again. With every moment, another memory, another---  


  


_The train station, 2009. Waiting anxiously, not even sure if it was the right train or the right platform, but when he saw the awkwardly-long brown hair and its equally-awkward owner, he knew that this was a turning point in his life---_  


_December, later that year. Filming for the Christmas Adventure, and watching the stars come out from the street after Dan had faceplanted into the snow, claiming to be making a “forwards snow angel.” The way he shivered, snowflakes melting into drips of water which fell from his fringe down, down---_  


_Living alone in Manchester, with the painting of poppies on the wall and the sofa which was “really too small for you to sleep on, Dan, honestly, I don’t mind sharing the bed, I won’t even shout at you if you steal all the covers in the night,” making pancakes in the tiny kitchen and noticing that Dan had stopped asking if he could borrow clothes, instead just taking t-shirts and socks and sweatpants, leaving his own as an exchange--_  


_Moving into the new flat, dragging boxes of assorted wires into his new bedroom (with an ensuite bathroom, of course, “because I’ve got more subscribers, Dan!”--_  


_The months when they didn’t talk, barely acknowledged each others’ presence, when casual touches and midnight impromptu sleepovers were suddenly off-limits, the thousands of times it had crossed his mind that maybe he shouldn’t---_  


_Slowly falling back into routine, doing Christmas specials for the BBC, the sudden influx of subscribers and Internet fame, and the looming end of the lease--_  


_The first days in London, realizing that an unfurnished flat meant that they suddenly needed to buy places to sit, to eat, to sleep, the cheap furniture which was all they could afford with the money they scraped together from their combined YouTube revenue, long nights spent staring at the ceiling and wondering if this was really the right decision, waiting to hear back from the BBC--_  


_Radio success, winning the Golden Headphones, hosting the online stream of the BRITs, everything falling into place. The reappearance of Dan’s real smiles, the ones where his dimple became his most prominent facial feature and his eyes crinkled at the corners, thinking about living like this indefinitely and the fear of everything ending--_  


_Launching the gaming channel, long nights spent planning videos and writing for the book, their book, arranging tour dates and booking plane tickets to the numerous events and conventions they were invited to, slowly moving back to the time when everything was “us” and “we” and “ours”---_  


_Four in the afternoon, being dragged out the door with barely enough time to put shoes on, an impatient hand clasped around his wrist and a hasty “No, don’t ask me where we’re going, you’ll know when we get there, just come_ on, _we don’t have all day,” remaining silent for the whole tube ride, confused but hopeful. In the distance, the silhouette of a wheel against the grey sky, the light at the zebra crossing saying it was okay to cross so he walked out without looking, oblivious to the speeding taxi and only realizing what was happening when he heard the desperate warning in a familiar, panicked voice--”Phil, watch out, get out of the---”_  


_Hands on his back, pushing, shoving, landing on the tarmac and scraping his palms, the screeching of tires and the sickening noise of metal on flesh, turning his head faster than he thought possible in time to see Dan, his best friend, his flatmate, his……_  


_The noise when the body hit the ground, the blood that appeared all at once, the hushed whispers of the crowd and the numbness, the ringing in his ears as he reached out an arm in Dan’s direction, his name on his lips, wide blue eyes refusing to believe what they had just witnessed._

  


After a while, Phil’s shoulders stopped shaking, the tears dried up, and he was left hiccoughing, raspily breathing in the scent of the now-damp hoodie and looking around the room for the first time in a fortnight, noticing the stacks of dishes, the half-drunk mugs of tea and coffee, the half-open blinds that let in the amber glow of the streetlights. Squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, he opened them with new resolve. He couldn’t go on like this. Everything might not be okay, and might not be for a long time, but he needed to face the truth, to realize that no matter how hard he tried to deny it, Dan was gone, and there was no use dwelling forever in misery and isolation.  


With Dan’s uni hoodie grasped loosely in one hand and the other steadying himself against the hallway wall, Phil shuffled towards the two doors at the end. He took a deep breath, and placed his hand on the wood of the one on the right.  


Phil paused for a moment, and then pushed the door open.


End file.
